A real estate riddle: Sale of Westinghouse campus in Cranberry(PA) involved no property
When the 823,979-square-foot campus of Westinghouse Electric Co. in Cranberry changed hands in January, the blockbuster transaction did not involve any actual real estate. Instead, the company that owned it was sold — a legal maneuver that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in deed transfer taxes.
To the seller, Columbia Property Trust, the transaction followed the mandates of state law.
To skeptics, it amounted to another loophole exploited to cut the amount of taxes owed.
“The reality is that every time the Legislature closes a loophole, the real estate community finds another. They are halfway around the world before the Legislature is out of bed and has its socks on,” said Ira Weiss, solicitor for the Pittsburgh Public Schools, who acknowledged that the transaction appeared to fit the provisions of state law.
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